Better
by Paper Pieces
Summary: The same event through two sets of eyes... (The Sequel to Cliché! Part 2 up!)
1. Walking on Water

A/N- The ever promised sequel to Cliché…Even though I'm still waiting for a second beta reading, I'm too impatient not to put it up. Keep in mind NOTHING is set in stone, not even the titles. I could wake up tomorrow, hate this story and rewrite it completely. Chances are when my beta gets back to me I'll have to repost…Reminder: While 'This is a great story! Keep it up!' reviews are easy on the ol' ego, I'd really like specifics about what you like or dislike. Keep that in mind if/when you review. Thanks! 

Better

Part 1: Walking on Water

The room was quiet. Just the way he liked it, perfect for his own peaceful mind exercises. 

            He pulled the familiar book from under his pillow. The raised letters of the main title were worn, yet pointed against his dry fingers. The picture on the front was barely recognizable and the binding had horizontal bending lines along it from being left stretched open under beds, between mattresses, in drawers, and on top of sheets. 

            The thin pages brushed against each other as he opened them, searching for a point to begin. The place didn't matter. The plot and the theme were memorized and held deep in the back of his mind. The characters actions had been committed to memory a long time ago and the outcome never changed. 

But the story was still timeless to him. He was still happy at the reunions, sad at the misunderstanding, scared during the climax. He felt free from all constraints and circumstances of his own world, free to dive into the fictional universe and experience life completely separate from his own. In this life, there was always a constant that held through crisis, whether it be friendship, compassion, or love…

If only life was like a book…

"What are you reading?"

He looked up towards the door, pushing the book to his stomach. His lips curled into a grin. "Just a book." 

He wondered if she knew she was late, if it was intentional. She'd never been late before. 

Their nightly pre-bed ritual was his one way of seeing her all to himself, away from their team roles and personalities and pretenses. Not that all of it was a pretense, but there was something about an intimate conversation that had a more natural air and allowed a more free flow of ideas and thoughts and opinions.  

Sometimes he wondered if it was her powers that brought him out of his dull mechanical shell, which sometimes was thicker than his impervious state. The way she conveyed her emotions was poetic, yet simple, and with them she seemed to pull feeling out of everything around her. 

Never had he given much thought to the internal workings of others, especially the crazy organic types his upbringing had taught him to look down upon, but she was so different than others he'd met, even in his adult life.  Knowledge didn't rule her world, nor did guilt. She wasn't anger driven. She didn't necessitate a constant adrenaline flow. Her agenda wasn't concealed from the world, or if it was, she had fooled all those around her. 

 "What kind of book?" The voice pulled him back from his thoughts. She smiled, eyes twinkling with amusement as she moved fully into the room. Her beige baggy pajama pants rustled almost soundlessly as her bare feet strode along the carpeted floor. She seemed almost to float…

His straightened legs bent at the knee, allowing a spot for her at the bottom of the bed. She sat, pulling her left leg up underneath her, leaving her right to dangle off the bed. Causally, she laid her back against the wall that covered the far side of his mattress and brushed a strand of her soft red hair out of her face. 

"The Truth?" She read off the cover, and then returned her eyes back to his face. "A little pretentious, don't you think?"

"No," He replied with mock offense. "It's actually a really good book. You should read it before you decide to joke."

"Fine then. What's it about?" She chuckled, reaching over his knees, leaning her body forward to take the paperback from his possession. Her laugh seeped into his skin, warming it like the heat of a thick blanket. "Let me guess. It's an adventure story."

He placed his palms on the bed beside his chest and shifted to a cross-legged position, facing her as she flipped the tome over to read the summary on the back. 

             "Not really." He explained as he reached behind him to adjust his pillows. "It's more of a self-discovery story."

            She looked up from flipping pages. Her gentle blue eyes met his, her head tilted slightly with a half-smile. "I'm listening."

            "It's about this guy's life in his twenties, you know, all the problems, and choices, and dilemmas." 

            "I never took you for a realistic fiction reader."  Her hand bent back over her wrist in a nonchalantly giving gesture. "And yet, I'm not surprised."

            "Maybe you know me better than you think." 

            She looked down at the floor with a smile. He noticed her left hand placed on her cheek as if to innocently feel her own skin, yet a faint red tint crept out from behind it. "I guess I do."  

            "I like to think of it as a way of fulfilling my need for a normal life. Sort of a living vicariously through a book." He chuckled to himself as he took the book and ran his fingers over the familiar cover. "I don't know, maybe I'm just that boring."

            He stared at the cover for a moment. His mind could still conjure the image of the strong man's hands holding out the book. He could even see his face, hear his voice, as he presented it to him. He could feel the swelling of happiness in his chest at the fact that his father had remembered him on his important government trip. 

            "Your dad gave it to you?" Her voice was soft suddenly, but confident, making the question sound more like a statement.

He glanced up at her. Her eyes yielded such concern. He knew she was speculating if the subject was still sensitive. The caring thought made him smile. "Yeah," His fingers opened the book, flipping the pages with a quick whoosh-ing sound. "I've had it with me since I was fifteen, give or take. No matter where I was or where he went, I had a little piece of him." She nodded in silent respect for the memory. 

The subject had come up once before, during his father's latest and last venture into his life. While the comfort of others had helped, it wasn't until he'd decided to lay all the emotions before this caring woman that he's actually been able to reach his true feelings about the man and move beyond the past. She understood his feelings and disappointments and empathized from her own life. She'd hadn't had her parents for long either, and no matter how long and hard she tried to deny it, the neglect and eventual desertion had made a emotion wound. Their shared feelings of abandonment had helped them connect as confidants. 

"No wonder you like it so much." She pivoted her body to face him, reaching out her arm and gently taking the book back once more. "So, do you have a favorite part?"

"Oh, lots of them." 

"Like?"

He thought for a second, contemplating which to mention to her inquisitive mind. Smiling at the carpet, he replied, "Page 122". She began to search for the stated page. He took her hands, which grasped the book, and turned them so that he could see the text to tell her where to begin. "Start with 'That night…'"

She held the page up to her eyes and began to read aloud, "That night, I didn't sleep. It was like my mind was running full speed down a strange, winding tunnel of thought, searching for some sort of answer. 

"She'd asked me who I was. More importantly, I couldn't answer. I always thought I knew who I was, but my mind had completely blank and all the things I'd taught myself to say were gone. When had that changed?

"Around 3 AM, it finally hit me. She had changed me.  Her words had changed me. Her movements had changed me. Her eyes, her smile had changed me. She questioned things I'd always relied on. She knew things I'd never hoped to find. She did things I'd always dreamed of doing. And through her, I questioned, I found, I did. I'd been opened up to a brave and strange new version of myself, broken out of the programmed, close-minded, ignorant shell I'd been enclosed into. Just experiencing her, her mind, her presence, her being, made me better."

She stopped. He glanced up from floor at the sudden break in the text. Her eyes were vacant for that moment. They fixed themselves intently on the text, or just perhaps the page, in front of her. The long puzzled stare was vaguely reminiscent of whenever she tried to read someone's emotions, but lacking a certain intensity. 

"It keeps going." 

"I know." She replied softly, then cleared her throat to continue.

"As I smiled up at my ceiling, I knew for the first time I was in something different. It was something indescribably amazing and strange and scary. My mind suddenly sprang free into a whole new place. It had finally met my heart and I knew I was ready."

Her mouth remained open on the last syllable of the monologue. Her lips quivered trying to form some word or sound. 

"Jesse…" Her eyes rose to his meeting his gaze for the first time in what seemed like ages. She trailed off in sudden thought. Staring at him, she remained completely motionless, her breathing still, the same expression of determination on her face. 

Her face changed abruptly, turning from resolve to defeat and yielding perhaps to something more powerful than she. "Never mind." She said, a hint of self-disgust in her voice. She dropped the book beside her, desperately trying to give him a happy smile, which came off disappointed and pained. "I think I better go to bed. You know big day tomorrow." 

He watched as she moved to the door without any of the same float she had when she entered. That one moment drained her of some sort of energy, a passion, that she had carried into the room. 

"Emma!" He heard himself call out to her, almost rolling off the bed. He met her at the doorway, facing her as she looked up at him expectantly. 

She was shorter than he. He'd never realized that. It was only a slight difference, but still, he'd never noticed how much smaller she was. 

Her face…

Never had his mind ventured past the simple adjective of 'cute', but suddenly the perspective changed. It held strangely exotic, yet familiar features that seems so perfectly sculpted, her little upturned nose, thin eyebrows, small chin. Her blue eyes had such a striking tint, the sky might have been accused of a poor replication. Even in the dimly lit corridor, and with the sense of sorrow, they glittered like stars. Her classically innocent air, which permeated his senses like her sweet flowery smell, was enchanting. 

And yet her appearance looked unusually worn. Underneath, he knew she had her own heavy inflictions. On the pathway life had led them down, the task of escaping the thorns of isolation, scorn, and injustice was hardly different from walking on water. He knew the marks on his own heart were deep and painful, and _he kept the world at a distance. _

But she, she embraced the world, submerging herself in it. Instead of staying inside or dashing in and out, her heart led her into the rain that characterize their lives. She was brave enough to dance under the gray and black clouds and soak herself full of the cold water. Yet along with that courage, she was tortured still and with more effort than those who ran through the storm or avoided it all together. Everyday, she felt the weight of the tainted emotions of the people that surrounded her and, by her own choice and desperate need to help, she took those weights upon herself.  

It hadn't been until recently that he'd began to see her as the angel that she was, but then, in that moment, he saw the dark side of that role.  She kept the faith for everyone around her, pushing them, comforting them, cheering for them, keeping them focused on their goal, but who did that for her?

He did. The thought ran through his body like lightening. That's why she came into his room at night to talk. That's why they shared such a bond. His brain had never realized that he was the one she needed…

And he needed her.

Before he could even react to his own thoughts, his hand was on her cheek and his lips were on hers. 

By the sudden tension in her body, he knew she hadn't been expecting it. The initial shock died quickly, though, as he felt her body almost melt against his. Her passion and energy revived as the action passed. 

The kiss was over as quickly as it had started, but the moment stood frozen in time as the feeling lingered on his lips and in his mind. Jesse felt himself smile. 

"Goodnight, Em." 

"Goodnight, Jess."

Maybe books can bring out emotions and reactions, maybe they provide comfort and take you away from everything painful…

            But sometimes life is better than a book…


	2. Untouchable

A/N- I forgot to mention that The Truth is a book I made up. The "excerpt" is from my head alone. The title is from a very funny fantasy book by Terry Prachett. This has not been beta-ed but I'm tired of having it hanging over my head. Happy Reading! R/R!

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The silence was eerie. She'd at least expected the familiar buzz of the computers, which weaved in and out of the large subterranean refuge, to break the strange quiet. But even the air was still, leaving room for only her thoughts to keep her attention. 

Every night she was drawn to the far bedroom. She would walk through the same doorway and sit on the same bed. 

And every night he expected her. He would flash his disarming smile and graciously welcome her into his abode. Then they would sit and talk about anything and everything, until one of them was too tired to carry on the conversation. She would then quietly excuse herself and return to her own room, to crawl beneath her sheets and watch his face float in her mind, to torture herself with her own thoughts. 

It was a cruel and vicious cycle that she was powerless against.

…But resentments washed away as she neared the door. He lay stretched out on his bed, reading his tattered book. 

It was the same book he read by the fountain, the same book he read at the table, the same book he read out on top of the mountain where he thought no one would look for him. She'd seen it in his subconscious. Whenever he felt safe and comforted, she knew he was wrapped up in the pages. 

A smile crossed her face. He could be so adorable sometimes. Even when she was angry or bitter about what life had brought her, his face could make her relax. His voice made her grin. His smile melted her. 

"What are you reading?" The sounds left her mouth without a thought. 

He glanced up at her with his smooth blue eyes. The mischievous grin flashed across his face. "Just a book." 

"What kind of book?" She crossed to the bed and settled into the space he cleared with his feet. His gentle smile sustained the grin on her face. It felt so good to capture his full attention. Even the prospect that he was thinking about her sent a shiver up her spine. "The Truth?" She read off the cover. "A little pretentious, don't you think?"

"No," He replied, pretending to be insulted except for a hint of laughter in his voice. "It's actually a really good book. You should read it before you decide to joke."

"Fine then. What's it about?" She laughed, interest reaching out her hand to take the paperback. "Let me guess. It's an adventure story."

 "Not really." He explained, as she skimmed the back. "It's more of a self-discovery story."

         Glancing up, she met his eyes for a moment. He had sat up, clearly ready to spill its content to her. She suppressed a giggle at his eagerness and tried to look serious. "I'm listening."

         "It's about this guy's life in his twenties, you know, all the problems, and choices, and dilemmas." 

The statement settled on her mind peculiarly. Around the others, he'd never seemed like one to think past technology and the predictability of machines. He thought of how to disarm bombs and hack into security videos. It wasn't in his character to read anything other than books about science fiction or military operations. 

But past the odd feeling, she didn't feel shocked or taken aback. Alone, in this room, he spoke of family and old friends, new movies, good jokes, world news, or old memories. His thoughts were more about normal things; things that had no place in their extraordinary life.  "I never took you for a realistic fiction reader, and yet, I'm not surprised." 

         "Maybe you know me better than you think." He took the book back into his hands. 

         "I guess I do."  

         "I like to think of it as a way of fulfilling my need for a normal life. Sort of living vicariously through a book." He ran his fingers over the faded cover, laughing to himself. Even as a chuckle, his laugh was warm, spreading a smile across her face once more. "I don't know, maybe I'm just that boring."

            The laugh faded out into silence. His glare was intently on the book, his expression of contemplation smoothed across his face. Images of a man pelted her brain. A strange wave of foreign joy infected her body. The feeling was familiar, along with the immense sorrow that followed. 

He was thinking about Noah. The book had come from him, his estranged father.

"Your dad gave it to you."

He glanced up at her. He seemed surprised at the observation, like he forgot who he was talking too. An amused smile crossed his lips. 

"Yeah," His voice whispered hoarsely. Looking down at the book, a smile grew on his face, an embarrassed one. He cleared his throat to cover the moment of weakness. "I've had it with me since I was fifteen. No matter where I was or where he went, I had a little piece of him." 

As much as he denied it, it hurt him to be unloved. Her heart went out to him. She knew his tale of abandonment and neglect as well as if it had been her own… 

Because it had been her own. 

Being at opposite ends of society didn't change any of the emotion involved. Of all people, she knew that feelings weren't discriminatory, not by gender, nor color, nor status. Maybe that was why he had felt so open to talk about it after the man had come back into his life, only to use him and throw him out. 

In the back of her mind, she had played the same scenario over with her life. Still, she was unsure of how she would have reacted, but it would have been nowhere close to as calm as he had been. Something she marveled at about him was how much of an emotion rock he was externally. Yet, in his mind, he was such a powerhouse. Just another contradiction that defined him. 

 "No wonder you like it so much." She smiled at him supportively, gently motioning for the book back. "Do you have a favorite part?"

The small smile spread into a large grin. "Oh, lots of them." 

"Like?"

"Page 122" 

She thumbed her way quickly through the small tome, trying to ignore that he was moving closer to her, how near he suddenly was to her.  

"Start with 'That night…'" 

Holding the book up, she began, "That night, I didn't sleep. It was like my mind was running full speed down a strange, winding tunnel of thought, searching for some sort of answer. 

"She'd asked me who I was. More importantly, I couldn't answer. I always thought I knew who I was, but my mind had gone completely blank and all the things I'd taught myself to say were gone. When had that changed? 

"Around 3 AM, it finally hit me. She had changed me.  Her words had changed me. Her movements had changed me. Her eyes, her smile had changed me. She questioned things I'd always relied on. She knew things I'd never hoped to find. She did things I'd always dreamed of doing. And through her, I questioned, I found, I did. I'd been opened up to a brave and strange new version of myself, broken out of the programmed, close-minded, ignorant shell I'd been enclosed into. Just experiencing her, her mind, her presence, her being, made me better."

She stopped. Every word hung in her brain with familiarity. How many nights had she spent trying to sleep after their meetings and ultimately succumbing to thoughts of him? How many mornings had she spent still thinking about a sentence he'd said? How many afternoons had she spent thinking of questions to ask him? 

Why had he chosen this passage? Why had he chosen a perfect description of how she felt? 

Did he know that he was a release for her? Did he know that he kept her grounded to the real world? Did he know that he kept her sane…

And yet drove her completely crazy?

She wanted to figure him out. She wanted to know why he felt the way he did. She wanted to know how he was so honest and trusting, despite the injustices of the world. She wanted to know how he was who he was, so kind, so smart, so loving. 

She wanted to know how he could be so close to perfect and not even know it. 

"It keeps going."

The three words broke her inward gaze and back to the moment at hand. Her eyes scanned the page. "I know." 

"As I smiled up at my ceiling, I knew for the first time I was in something different. It was something indescribably amazing and strange and scary. My mind suddenly sprang free into a whole new place. It had finally met my heart and I knew I was ready."

Her heart screamed in her chest. The moment has come, it shouted, pour me out! Tell him that you need him! Tell him all the feelings I've been holding onto for so long! Please! I'm so tired of hold on to them! 

 "Jesse…" 

She did care and she wanted to tell him.

Her eyes rose to his meeting his gaze. Her voice trailed off. 

He was untouchable. The voice in her mind told her so. The same message went through her head everyday, whenever she saw him, whenever she couldn't see him. 

Only in the night was that voice fainter. 

She'd said herself that you shouldn't think about your teammates that way. She knew she was a hypocrite the moment it had come out of her mouth. 

But it wasn't that there was any unspoken policy about team relationships. She couldn't follow through with her feelings because of her own rules. 

When she sent out the immense terror to scare of the enclosing troops, he had intercepted it. His eyes, now filled with puzzlement and confusion, had been filled with a fear and torment beyond human reckoning. It was the single moment when he didn't see the same woman in front of him. The look he gave her had such horror and alarm, all directed at her. It struck her heart like a sledgehammer to see him in so much pain, and to know that she had caused it. 

He didn't remember. She had had to erase the memory. He would have never looked at her the same again. But she remembered…

And it terrified her.

Her powers were growing so fast and so strong that she wondered how she was even able to contain them. That battle constantly raged in her head for control. She didn't want to hurt anyone with what she was.

The irony was that, just when she thought she was going crazy, he could make everything make sense with a smile. His charm, his sweetness, his intelligence would envelope her and make her mind clear. It reassured her that the world was still all right and she didn't need to worry. 

She needed that from him.

She needed him.

She wanted him. 

But she couldn't.

"Never mind." Her voice said for her. "I think I better go to bed. You know big day tomorrow."

In a heartbeat, she'd dragged herself off his bed and to the door. She'd forgot the reason she'd put up the barriers. She'd forgot why she'd put her mind in charge of her heart so long ago. 

"Emma!" His voice startled her. His face was there when she forced herself to turn. 

He didn't say anything, just looked contemplative as he stood over her. He cocked his eyebrows, squinted his eyes. The same look he gave complex situations in the light of day. She wondered what he was trying to figure out, what he was thinking. 

The warm hand on her cheek was the first sign she registered; second was his body against hers. Only then did she recognize the lips on hers. 

It had been everything she'd ever wanted, warm, sweet, passionate, exactly how she had imagined it. It felt like magic. Her stomach leapt into her throat; tears gathered at her eyes. Even as she tiptoed down the noiseless hallway, her lips and skin still tingled with excitement from his touch. If she'd ever wanted to experience true happiness, she knew that moment was her first taste.

But even with the happy pin-pickling sensation, her heart sank deep into her chest. She knew it was impossible. She couldn't get too close to anyone. She could feel the power growing in her head; she could feel her fear not far behind.

"I'm sorry, Jesse." She whispered to the sleeping man. A single tear rolled down her cheek as the bright gentle blast erased the moment, erased the touch, erased the happiness, erased the hope, erased the memory…

"So here I'm sitting in my car at the same old stop light  
I keep waiting for a change but I don't know what  
So red turns into green turning into yellow  
But I'm just frozen here in the same old spot  
And all I have to do is to press the pedal  
but I'm not"

-Aimee Mann "It's Not"


End file.
